Ducks win title on Singler’s last-second shot

A season that lasted longer than any ever has for Oregon went down to the end Friday night before E.J. Singler banked in a shot with two seconds left to give the Ducks a 71-69 victory to win the College Basketball Invitational title before 9,335 in Matthew Knight Arena.

The Ducks regained possession for the winning shot when Creighton’s Antoine Young stepped back over the midcourt line with 17 seconds left while dribbling away time before the Bluejays went for the winning points.

Joevan Catron, named the tournament’s outstanding player led the Ducks with a career-high 29 points in his final college game and Singler added 15. Young topped Creighton with 21 points and Doug McDermott added 13, all in the second half.

Greg Echenique jammed in two points as the Bluejays took a 69-67 lead with 45 seconds remaining but Garrett Sim answered with a finger roll to knot the game again. Creighton took its final timeout with 25.4 seconds remaining

Neither team led by more than five points in the second half, and there was only a single instance where the margin was as much as four points over the final 17 minutes.

Catron knotted the game at 67-67 with a minute left, after Sim kept the possession alive by tipping the rebound of a missed shot by the Ducks to a teammate.

Creighton scored the first six points of the second half for a 36-31 lead, but Oregon fought back and the game was tied at 38, 40, 42 and 44 as the teams exchanged points.

Then it was an exchange of leads, seven of them in a little over four minutes until Catron’s baseline drive tied it again at 56-56.

Johnathan Loyd drove for a basket and Catron posted up for two points to make the advantage 60-56 but Young’s three-point play cut that lead to a point.

Oregon could never get the margin to more than three, and Echenique’s dunk with three minutes left put the Bluejays back on top at 65-64.

Catron knotted the game again with a free throw before Echenique hit two with 1:37 left as the Bluejays regained the lead.

Oregon jumped out to 14-7 lead in the first four minutes by hitting six of their first eight shots from the field. That didn’t last, and when the Ducks missed eight of their nine shots and scored three points in a span of nine possessions, it allowed the Bluejays a chance to regroup and gradually play themselves back into the game.

Antoine Young, who had 11 points in the first half, hit a jumper with two minutes left in the half for Creighton’s first lead, at 30-29 before the Ducks retook the lead 31-30 at halftime.

After opening 6-of-8 from the field, the Ducks went 5-of-22 and missed their final nine three-point attempts of the first half.

Bob Clark is a veteran sports reporter who has covered local and national events for more than 30 years.